Sorry mate, you don’t get to issue challenges based on your worldview. Your real challenge, as Rob suggests, is to persuade me/us/the world that you have good reason why we should ignore the overwhelming balance of evidence and 150 years of scientific endeavour and do nothing about climate change. For a man with your internet research skills, that should be a doddle. Just remember you have to persuade the experts through the peer-reviewed literature, not just Treadgold, Dedekind and Scrace.

PSI researchers [50+ now] like Latour are no lightweights in this debate as Roy Spencer learned to his cost. Dr. Latour is renowned in the field of thermodynamics having worked on the NASA Apollo space mission before embarking on a stellar career as a chemical process control systems engineer to the international oil and chemical process industry. Professor Spencer on his blog addresses the “33 degrees” number and admits he first “became aware of its significance” from reading Professor Richard Lindzen’s 1990 paper, ‘Some Coolness Regarding Global Warming.’ So persuaded is Spencer of it’s validity that he goes on to claim the Hansen junk number offers a “ real-world observed “radiative-convective equilibrium” case.” Thus, both Lindzen and Spencer are completely fooled by Hansen.

PSI researchers, proving to be the more adept numbers analysts, say a better explanation of our atmosphere’s temperature gradient is adiabatic pressure rather than any supposed GHE – this fact also applies to most planetary bodies in our solar system. So now it’s demonstrated the “33 degrees” claim is bogus what other hard and fast numbers exist to prove of the GHE? Well, none actually. All climatologists have left are hand waving assertions that “greenhouse gases” trap or delay the exit of energy from the atmosphere. Some even claim energy gets “back radiated” adding additional heat to the system. But no tests, no observations, no experiments in our atmosphere have adduced any verifiable numbers for those claims. It is all a matter of unproven belief.

Other thermodynamics experts are also hard at work dismantling the GHE. One recent debunk comes from Dr. Jinan Cao. Cao showed Hansen also misapplied the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. [5] Meanwhile, PSI researchers, Joseph E.Postma and Carl Brehmer are soon to add to such compelling work by publishing more damning evidence disproving the GHE.

[…]

Disappointingly, even among their ranks of man-made global warming skeptics eminent climatologists such as Fred Singer, Dick Lindzen and Roy Spencer are loathe to address these developments. When apologists for junk science do speak out it is invariably to dismiss Latour and other PSI researchers as “cranks.” The diehards claim the GHE has 150 years of “solid science” backing them. But much of it is from the likes of Arrhenius, Fourier and Tyndall who are often misquoted. Pointedly, these Victorian theorists based their GHE beliefs on the discredited notion of “luminiferous aether” – which is exposed in a short history of radiation by Dr. Matthias Kleespies. [6]

OK, PSI isn’t a body of what Gareth would regard as main-stream peer-reviewed literature but there will come a time when he will have to address the unfounded and fallacious basis of his “overwhelming balance of evidence” and “150 years of scientific endeavour” exposed by PSI.

“I would argue the precautionary principle that we should be careful and hedge our bets. Humans are twiddling the knobs of a complex non-linear system and there may (or may not if there is some negative feedback loop) be consequences”

The precautionary principle means anything you want it to mean. But is is generally taken to promote a “least regrets” approach to climate change policy issues. That approach is well described in this week’s policy statement by Mitt Romney in the US:

“I am not a scientist myself, but my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences. However, there remains a lack of scientific consensus on the issue — on the extent of the warming, the extent of the human contribution, and the severity of the risk — and I believe we must support continued debate and investigation within the scientific community.

Ultimately, the science is an input to the public policy decision; it does not dictate a particular policy response. President Obama has taken the view that if global warming is occurring, the American response must be to slash carbon dioxide emissions by imposing enormous costs on the U.S. economy. First he tried a massive cap-and-trade bill that would have devastated U.S. industry. When that approach was rejected by Congress, he declared his intention to pursue the same course on his own and proceeded through his EPA to impose rules that will bankrupt the coal industry.

Nowhere along the way has the President indicated what actual results his approach would achieve — and with good reason. The reality is that the problem is called Global Warming, not America Warming. China long ago passed America as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. Developed world emissions have leveled off while developing world emissions continue to grow rapidly, and developing nations have no interest in accepting economic constraints to change that dynamic. In this context, the primary effect of unilateral action by the U.S. to impose costs on its own emissions will be to shift industrial activity overseas to nations whose industrial processes are more emissions-intensive and less environmentally friendly. That result may make environmentalists feel better, but it will not better the environment.

So I oppose steps like a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system that would handicap the American economy and drive manufacturing jobs away, all without actually addressing the underlying problem. Economic growth and technological innovation, not economy-suppressing regulation, is the key to environmental protection in the long run. So I believe we should pursue what I call a “No Regrets” policy — steps that will lead to lower emissions, but that will benefit America regardless of whether the risks of global warming materialize and regardless of whether other nations take effective action.

For instance, I support robust government funding for research on efficient, low-emissions technologies that will maintain American leadership in emerging industries. And I believe the federal government must significantly streamline the regulatory framework for the deployment of new energy technologies, including a new wave of investment in nuclear power. These steps will strengthen American industry, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and produce the economically-attractive technologies that developing nations must have access to if they are to achieve the reductions in their own emissions that will be necessary to address what is a global issue.”

]]>By: Richard C (NZ)https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/coming-climate-clouded-but-present-panic-pretty-plain/comment-page-1/#comment-122274
Sat, 06 Oct 2012 07:33:44 +0000https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/?p=15339#comment-122274Alexander re “I have read a number of accounts of life in England during the LIA”

Andy invoked the specter of a Katia eruption about a week ago and that in combination with a PDO in cool phase and a very weak solar cycle is the scenario of this article under ‘Economics”:-

I don’t think a populace fed a steady diet of “warming world” news and views has much conception of what that apposite scenario would entail. Snippets from that article are a indication:-

During the Dalton Minimum, the abnormally cold weather destroyed crops in northern Europe, the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Historian John D. Post called it “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world.” The record cold intensified after the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in more than 1,600 years.

During the 70-year Maunder Minimum, astronomers at the time counted only a few dozen sunspots per year, thousands fewer than usual. As sunspots vanished, temperatures fell. The River Thames in London froze, sea ice was reported along the coasts of southeast England, and ice floes blocked many harbors. Agricultural production nose-dived as growing seasons became shorter, leading to lower crop yields, food shortages and famine.

The Tambora eruption in 1815, the largest in 1,600 years, sent the earth’s climate into a deep freeze, triggering “the year without a summer.” Columnist Art Horn, writing in the Energy Tribune, describes the impact:

“During early June of 1815, a foot of snow fell on Quebec City. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Frost killed crops across New England with resulting famine. During the brutal winter of 1816/17, the temperature fell to -32 in New York City.”

# # #

That prospect I think, is a sobering contrast to Renwick’s “very dangerous game”.

“The IMFs partitions the time series as a function of time-scale (frequency) in a statistically significant way. The residual series show that the data is overall fitted though a slight under-prediction of extreme values is occurred due to small underlying trends caused by El Nino or climate change. Some further statistical research would be needed to address these problems. The IMFs, each carrying its own time scales, could be used in statistical prediction of future climate scenarios. However, those climate predictions still remain as a challenge for future research”

Abstract
Long-term nonstationary oscillations (NSOs) are commonly observed in climatological data series such as global surface temperature anomalies (GSTA) and low-frequency climate oscillation indices. In this work, we present a stochastic model that captures NSOs within a given variable. The model employs a data-adaptive decomposition method named empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Irregular oscillatory processes in a given variable can be extracted into a finite number of intrinsic mode functions with the EMD approach. A unique data-adaptive algorithm is proposed in the present paper in order to study the future evolution of the NSO components extracted from EMD. To evaluate the model performance, the model is tested with the synthetic data set from Rössler attractor and with GSTA data. The results of the attractor show that the proposed approach provides a good characterization of the NSOs. For GSTA data, the last 30 observations are truncated and compared to the generated data. Then the model is used to predict the evolution of GSTA data over the next 50 years. The results of the case study confirm the power of the EMD approach and the proposed NSO resampling (NSOR) method as well as their potential for the study of climate variables.

# # #

Looking forward to seeing the results of that case study but unless the earth’s energy variations are incorporated in some way – as Dan Pangburn’s model does – they’ll be off on the wrong trajectory with everyone else.

Besides the shift in interest to discerning an anthropogenic influence on global climate,
the lack of agreement on any kind of basic physical mechanism for a solar role in climate
oscillations, combined with the apparent lack of consistency in the relation between solar
cycles and terrestrial temperature trends perhaps has made this an uninviting area of
research. The difficulty of attributing temperature change to solar influence has been
thoroughly surveyed by Hoyt and Schatten [28]. In particular, there are numerous
reports of sign reversals in the relationship between temperature and solar activity in the
early 20th century, particularly after 1920 [28, pp 115-117]. More recently, Georgieva,
Kirov, and Bianchi [29] surveyed comprehensively the evidence for sign reversal in the relationship between solar and terrestrial temperatures, and suggested that these sign
reversals are related to a long term secular solar cycle with solar hemispheric
asymmetry driving the sign reversals. Specifically, they argue that there is a double
Gleissberg cycle in which during one half of the cycle the Southern solar hemisphere is
more active, while during the other half of the cycle the Northern solar hemisphere is
more active. They argue that this solar hemispheric asymmetry is correlated with long
term terrestrial climate variations in atmospheric circulation patterns, with zonal
circulation patterns dominating in the 19th and early 20th century, and meridional
circulation patterns dominating thereafter (see also [30] and [31]).

In our research, we pick up where Keeling and Whorf [13, 14] leave off, insofar as
documenting decadal and bidecadal oscillations in globally averaged temperature trends
is concerned, but revert to the explanation proposed by Bell [16] and others [3, 18], that
these are likely the result of a combined lunisolar influence, and not simply the result of
lunar nodal and tidal influences. We show that decadal and bidecadal oscillations in
globally averaged temperature show patterns of alternating weak and strong warming
rates, and that these underwent a phase change around 1920. Prior to that time, the
lunar influence dominates, while after that time the solar influence dominates. While
these show signs of being correlated with the broad secular variation in atmospheric
circulation patterns over time, the persistent influence of the lunar nodal cycle, even
when the solar cycle dominates the warming rate cycles, implicates oceanic influences
on secular trends in terrestrial climate. Moreover, while analyzing the behavior of the
secular solar cycle over the limited time frame for which we have reasonably reliable
instrumental data for measuring globally averaged temperature should proceed with
caution, if the patterns documented here persist, we may be on the cusp of a downward
trend in the secular solar cycle in which solar activity will be lower than what has been
experienced during the last four double sunspot cycles. These findings could influence
our expectations for the future regarding climate change and the issue of anthropogenic
versus natural variability in attributing climate change.

“Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8°C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown that minima in the secular Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun’s oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar system. As the future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around 2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe cooling on Earth. This forecast should prove ‘skilful’ as other long-range forecasts of climate phenomena, based on cycles in the sun’s orbital motion, have turned out correct, as for instance the prediction of the last three El Niños years before the respective event.”

]]>By: Andyhttps://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/coming-climate-clouded-but-present-panic-pretty-plain/comment-page-1/#comment-122137
Fri, 05 Oct 2012 20:26:08 +0000https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/?p=15339#comment-122137When this happens, people will probably die.
They will die as a direct result of climate change and energy policy.

If you’d been paying attention to my comments for weeks, you would know that I don’t think his analysis is valid (even though I thought it might some time ago) by way of the negative inflexion in HadSST2 that invalidates the underlying quadratic that Nicola uses and yes, I agree that it doesn’t hindcast past it’s start date. In other words, I’ve run a V&V of Scafetta’s model and discovered there’s a flaw in it’s predictive capability.

However, right now (when it really matters), Scafetta’s model is only one of two mimicing absolute temperature and trajectory. That cannot continue for long though with SST trending down.